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Sunday, May 30

The challenge this week at Fab 'n' Funky challenges is a sketch. It was intended to be a card sketch, but I made a layout out of it. The kit is by Baby Einstein....how cute is it?? The journaling says, "One day Allie looked up and found her mobile, then her whole world changed."

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My Partner in Crafting Crime's challenge this week was create a birthday 'something.' I don't have any birthdays coming up that need cards so a layout it was!! My nephew just celebrated his 16th birthday so voila! I followed sketch #65 at The Scrappiest.

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I've been catching up on April and May's photos for my digi album. Yes, I scrap everything twice...sometimes more than that! :) This first layout was my daughter's 6th birthday party. I followed the sketch at Sassy Lil' Sketches.

Monday, May 24

I have been catching up on some challenges I had flagged that I wanted to give a go. My first layout is my new favorite picture of the baby. It also led to the last layout of the baby food fail! At Katie's birthday, her grandma's got together and fed her chocolate frosting!!! Her smile is a far cry from the disgusting scowl I got last night! For this layout, I used Creative Scrappers sketch #105. I also used the color combo at The Play Date Cafe. The colors were pink, light green and pale yellow. You can also use neutrals so I felt okay using this set that has brown/creams as the base, since the main colors are what pop! :) :) :)

Next up is the layout I created with pictures from my daughter's first music program in Kindergarten. It made her day that her grandma and Allie could come since Daddy had to work. I followed Liz Qualman's sketch found HERE. I also drew inspiration from the Creative Prompts challenge #16. I added a frame around the journaling on the bottom left and tried to model the colors in the pic. I also followed the color challenge at Cupcake Craft Challenge #92. I had to choose one color to add to black and grey. My color was yellow. :) I also thought the 'admit one' ticket fit well since it was a music program. That was the challene over at All Sorts week #53.

Sunday, May 23

Have you come over to play along with Scrap It With a Song yet??? Well if this song doesn't inspire you...I don't know what will. I've been jammin along to Guns N Roses all week thanks to this week's song! The awesome sponsor this week is:

They are offering up a $10 gift certificate to their fabulous site to one lucky winner, so jump on over and play along. The song this week is 'Sweet Child O' Mine' by Guns N' Roses. Aren't so sure you know the song well enough? Well, that's okay. We always post a video so you can listen along while you scrap and we also post the lyrics if you work better reading them like a poem. We are a multi-craft challenge blog, so feel free to create an altered project, card or scrapbooking layout (digi or paper). You can take any set of lyrics and use them in your jounaling or title, take them as just a cue in selecting your embellies and/or photos or just let the overall theme of the song inspire you. However it floats your creative boat....let it! You have until high noon Sunday, May 30th (that's BFE Kansas time....lol) to submit your creation. So click HERE to come over and play!

Here is my layout. I used the line 'She's Got Eyes of the Bluest Skies' as my title because I absolutely LOVED how pretty blue my daughter's eyes looked in this photo. :)

The rest of the DT knocked it out of the park too, so don't forget to check them out :)

Monday, May 17

This week at Scrap It With a Song, we are challenging you all to create a layout, card or any altered project based on the song Love Story by Taylor Swift. We are having so much fun and I hope you'll come play along. This week's sponsor is PaperMom.com and she has some wonderful digi images she's giving the winner AND the rest of the top 5. The DT did wonderful this week so click HERE to come play. Here is my take this week.

Saturday, May 15

I absolutely love it when my scrappy fellow bloggers share an award with me. It totally brightens my day everytime someone visits my blog much less when they take the time to comment. Part of the catch with this award is to pass it along to 12 other people. So this go-round I'm gonna pass this along to the last 12 blogs I visited since they brightened my (middle of the) night tonight while my own baby sunshine has vetoed the idea of sleeping at night. :) :) :)

Now onto business, if the following ladies would like to display this badge loud and proud...go for it. If you want to post and pass it on, even better. Truly if you just read this and smile knowing you were thought of....that's a-ok by me too!!!

Thursday, May 13

I got this super fabby bloggy bling from my scrappy friend Tina. The catch (dagnabbit, isn't there ALWAYS a catch) is that I have to:

link back to the person who passed the award onto me......CHECK

post where I'd like to be in 10 years. I will surely be in denial about that fact that I am the mother to a teenage girl and a tween girl. LOL. I will be the proud mama of a 20yr old *almost grown* boy who I'm sure will be making me proud no matter what he is doing in life. I also hope that I've returned to the workforce in some capacity. Whether that be running a business myself, working partime, working from home...I don't know. I haven't worked since I had my son at 20 years old and I am looking forward to that stage in my life even though I will always want to be first a mom.

Pass this award on to 10 friends. That Tina is a pushy broad isn't she??? I've already passed an award on to my 10 favorite blogs I turn to for inspiration, and my 10 most visited blogs, so for this 10 I will pass it to the 10 bloggers I have known the longest....how's that for mixing it up. I ♥ these gals and they deserve a little bling for their blogs today! The OTHER Christina(LOL), Jessica, Sandy, April D, Kristie, Lisa, Amanda, Bonita, Valerie, Jenn

And here is the super cool bling for you to right click and save to upload to your own blog. I'm posting mine in my sidebar right now!

And because I am a big ole softee, you can have this award even if you don't have time or the desire to dedicate an entire post to it. You can brag about it all over your blog, just post it in the sidebar, just say thanks, or ignore me all together (I have a 10 year old...I'm used to it LOL). If you do post about it come back and let me know and I'll come and leave some love.

Wednesday, May 12

I found a fun new challenge blog called XOXO where each week the 'lipstick chicks' each post a layout and you pick and choose as many as you want to scraplift elements from to create your own layout. How fun is that??? This month is sponsored by Color Me Miki and they have the most generous kit I've seen up for grabs this month. So go play along!! My title is from Scrap That Poetry challenge #15 and also fits the challenge this week at The Pink Elephant. Listed below my layout are the lipstick chicks I shamelessly scraplifted ideas for this layout from. :) Click HERE to see the originals.

Monday, May 10

I went out of my comfort zone for this one. I have never been able to use kits that are grungy and uber texture filled. I tend to gravitate towards clean lines and simple patterns. Don't get me wrong, I quietly stalk several scrappy blogs that are more distressed and free. Their layouts are gorgeous and never cease to wow me. Just never thought I could pull it off. I finally decided to just jump right in and try. What's the worse that can happen? I hate it and rescrap it. Well....surprise....I LOVED this process. It may not be the greatest layout ever, but it's fun and free and chaotic and I LOVED it even if it's only a little gravitating towards the style. :) The sketch I followed is from Sketches! {by tamara} Challenge #118.

Happy Day after Mother's Day everyone!!! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend whether you are a mommy or not!! We spent the day with my Mother-in-Law and had a YUMMY lunch (that turned into dinner after the 2hr wait) at Olive Garden. It was so worth it though...YUM! Other than our Yummy Mother's Day, I've been out of the loop this week. I have had to quarantine our family up in our house for the better part of the past week as we all have had strep and I had a double ear infection on top of it. FUN....NOT! So since I've been a bad blogger and not shared anything in nearly a week, I will try to get a few scrappy projects done to share with you.

First up is my DT contribution over at Scrap It With a Song this week. The song we have for inspiration is True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. If you'd like to give it a try this week, we'd LOVE to have you play along. It's a multi-craft challenge blog so feel free to come play scrappers, digi scrappers, and cardmakers alike!!! This week is sponsored by Sew Many Cards...and they have the super-dee-duperist cute images you will find!!!

While I'm posting I need to toot my horn with a loud and proud WHOO HOO!!!!! I had lots of scrappy fun last weekend. I kicked off my National Scrapbooking Day fun early and played all kinds of games and participated in all kinds of challenges. I actually won TWO of them!!! And they were by far the best surprises I could have asked for. First I won the random draw of a $15GC from Paper Poppy over at Creative Scrappers. Have you seen their monthly kits??? UBER adorable!!!! If you remember, a few days ago I posted a layout I created based on one of the NSD challenges over at Sketches! {by tamara}. You can see that post HERE. Well the layout I created based on the recipe challenge was picked to win the RAK donated by their DT member Joan. Double WHOO HOO!!! I am so very excited. I'll be sure to share when I get my goodies from each!! :) :) :) :)

Monday, May 3

This layout just makes me smile like no other. The journaling reads, "When Mommy's camera went missing, Katie had no idea where it could have gone. Then Mommy downloaded the photos..." On Thanksgiving of last year my camera disappeared for several hours at a family function. I wasn't too worried and figured someone had moved it and I'd find it before I left. Both of my kids said they hadn't seen it. My youngest (at the time), Katie had a VERY mischievous smile as she said it, but never did I expect to find such silly shots as evidence of 'the crime.' LOL

This was my take on week #3 over at Scrap It With a Song. Click on the banner to go check it out and give it a try along with the most awesome DT creations I've seen from my girlies yet!!! It's super easy. We post a song every Monday and you can create a LO, card, or any other project that was inspired by the lyrics of the song or from the song as a whole. :) Come play along!! :)

Sunday, May 2

I had been wanting to try a shaped card for ages. I was always intimidated, but the challenge over at Cupcake Craft Challenge was to make a shaped card. I was going to make a flower shaped card, but I wanted to create an aqua card to incorporate the challenge at The Pink Elephant before I ran out of time. Wasn't sure how to put together aqua and a flower, but then my 10yr old decided to help and came up with a better idea. "How about make a fishbowl!" Totally random, but that's why I love him!!! Hahahaha. I decided to keep searching through blogdom for ideas until found this sketch at Card Patterns and this is what I came up with:

The sentiment on the inside says, "fishing you a happy birthday." The fishies are glitter rubons. I couldn't find seaweed looking embellies, but when I saw the challenge over at Practical Scrappers was to use stickers, I dug through my stickers and found this tree I thought would work okay. The bubbles are clear bubbles stickers by Joanns store brand. Which totally fits the challenges at 365 cards and The Creative Cottage. Papertake Weekly posted a challenge to do something different and this is totally different for me. :) I've never combined so many challenges in one card, but everytime I got stuck, I found another challenge to 'unstick' me! :)

Saturday, May 1

Now for the winner. I plugged your names into the random name picker at classtools.net. So the big winner is Elenor. You will have one week to contact me at chuckandchristina(at)yahoo(dot)com with your mailing address and I will let you know as soon as it goes postal.

I have spent my morning with a fussy baby in my lap. She is not taking her first set of shots very well. :( So catching up on my paper/scissor album will have to wait until tonight. I did manage to get a few done for my digi album.

To start my day of excitement, I got to see a layout I completed for a Facebook Fan reveal in honor of National Scrapbooking Day showcased over at Sketches! {by tamara}. Check it out here. Leave some love and maybe even give it a try while you are there!!!

While you are still there, they have 2 other NSD challenges that are loads of fun. Here is my take on the journaling challenge they posted this morning. It is an ABC page where I chronicled all the great things about grandparents, using my kiddos Noni as the model. :) You should be able to click on the layout to see it larger and read the journaling. For the layout, I followed the sketch over at Capture These Sketches.

The second layout I finished is for the regular weekly challenge over at Sketches! {by tamara}. The challenge this week was another journaling challenge and we were to document the 5 material things we can't live without. So since they specified 'material things', I didn't have to feel guilty about putting Starbucks above my kiddos. Hahahahaha.

Thanks for taking a look and check back later for the reveal of my big winner of my National Scrapbooking Day give-a-way. Just need to type all of the names of those that played along into the random picker and post. Need to shove my face full of dinner first though!! ;) LOL

The Fine Print

All work is my own unless otherwise stated. I make every effort to link to the original inspiration whenever possible. All work is Copyright 2008-2014 by Christina Willman-Skinner. Feel free to use any of my sketches or ideas for personal use. I would so very appreciate a link to my work if you use it as inspiration...especially for a contest, challenge or publication. Thank you so much for visiting and I hope you have a fabulous day!!